Quality Control of Tempered Glass Panels With Photoelasticity

Structures and Buildings
Volume 169 Issue SB6

Quality control of tempered glass panels
with photoelasticity
Kasper, Di Biase and Feldmann
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers

Structures and Buildings 169 June 2016 Issue SB6
Pages 442449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/stbu.14.00001
Paper 1400001
Received 03/01/2014
Accepted 02/06/2015
Published online 08/08/2015
Keywords: quality control/strength and testing of materials/stress
analysis
ICE Publishing: All rights reserved
Quality control of tempered

glass panels with photoelasticity
1
&
Ruth Kasper Dr.-Ing.
3
&
Markus Feldmann Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Research Engineer for Glass Structures, Department of Civil

Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Steel Construction,
Aachen, Germany
Professor and Head of Institute, Department of Civil Engineering,

RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Steel Construction, Aachen,
Germany
2
&
Pietro Di Biase Dipl.-Ing.
Research Engineer for Glass Structures, Department of Civil

Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Steel Construction,
Aachen, Germany
The quality of prestressed glass components can be evaluated in terms of technical quality which means sufficient
compliance with the product standards as well as in terms of optical quality which means a minimum of optical
distortions or thermal anisotropies. Both requirements technical quality and optical quality become more and more
important for both current and future glass applications. Structural applications, such as glass beams or columns, can
only be realised with high-quality glass that completely fulfils the product standards. Challenging architectural
solutions demand a minimum of anisotropic effects. Until now the prestressing has been evaluated by destructive
breakage tests, which give only random information about the glass quality. In recent years, however, a very simple
non-destructive method has been developed using polarising filters. Appropriate evaluation criteria have been
defined so that a screening almost over the entire surface (related to the area of a glass panel and the number of
glass panels produced) gives full information about the homogeneity of the prestressing. This method has the further
advantage that all possible glass geometries (for instance glass products such as curved glass panels) can easily be
checked in a non-destructive way.
Notation
C
d
1 2
1.
material constant of glass

thickness of sample
phase shift of light
characteristic wavelength of light
stress difference of principal stresses
Introduction
The quality of tempered glass is important for structural glass

applications such as beams or columns, as well as for standard
applications like facade glazing. In theory it is assumed that
the thermal pressing is homogeneous throughout the centre
area, but in reality a certain inhomogeneity always exists. For
the evaluation of a tempered glass product, criteria for the
acceptance of a certain inhomogeneity and a measurement
process are needed. This paper presents a screening method
that is based on the known basics of photoelasticity.
First the technical quality of tempered glass is presented; this
is followed by consideration of the optical quality of glass.
442
The next section provides examples to demonstrate the practical importance of the developed screening method. After
an introduction into the basics of photoelasticity, the results
of laboratory investigations are shown to demonstrate the
relationship between the homogeneity of the prestressing and
the well-known glass pattern tests, which are described in
Section 2. In future the screening method could replace the
pattern test for tempered glass.
2.
Technical quality of tempered glass
There are two different qualities of tempered glass depending

on the grade of prestressing: heat-strengthened glass (HSG)
and thermally toughened glass (TTG). Both materials are
treated in a tempering process in such a way that there is a
parabolic distribution of prestressing over the thickness. There
is compression next to the surface and tension in the internal
area of the glass. The difference between the two materials is
the quantity of prestressing (Figure 1), whereas the compression on the surface of HSG is about 30 to 50 N/mm,
Downloaded by [ UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA] on [14/11/16]. Copyright ICE Publishing, all rights reserved.


TTG reaches compression values larger than 100 N/mm. It

is assumed that there are isotropic prestressing conditions in
the plate area. Next to holes or to the edges of a glass plate
the non-isotropic conditions are related to the geometry.
The quantity of prestressing has a direct influence on the

breakage structure of glass. As a result of the high prestressing, a TTG panel breaks into very small glass pieces
(Figure 2(c)). The pre-stressing of a HSG panel is limited
so that the breakage structure is similar to float glass
(Figure 2(b)). The difference between float glass and HSG
can be seen directly near to the edges of a glass plate. Whereas
the crack of broken float glass flows out perpendicular to
the edge (Figure 2(a)), the crack of the broken HSG turns
to the right and to the left in the transition area between
inner tension stresses and outer compression stresses
(Figure 2(b)).
TTG
HSG
2 +
02d
06d
02d
2 +
~ 50 MPa
Besides the determination of the bending resistance of HSG

and TTG, the European product standards EN 12150 (BSI,
2000) and EN 1863 (BSI, 2011) require so-called pattern
tests. Small panels (360 mm 1100 mm) are to be broken at a
defined position by using a spring-operated firing pin. The
structure of the glass pattern gives the following information
depending on the grade of prestressing.
~ 120 MPa
Tension
Compression
(a)
&
&
Parabola-like
distribution of
1 = 2
3 = 0
3 = 0
2
The disadvantages of these tests are in particular the destructivity and of course the cost intensity. In addition, the tests
are only indirect, meaning that there is no information about
the quality of real size panels. The production of HSG is
more challenging than the production of TTG, because of the
disadvantage that no information about the homogeneity of
the prestressing is given.
(b)
Figure 1. (a) Prestress distribution across the plate section

depending on glass type (HSG and TTG) and (b) three-dimensional
cut-out (Feldmann et al., 2012)
(a)
HSG: the structure should be similar to float glass, because

the quantity of the prestressing should be limited. This test,
however, gives no information about the homogeneity of
the prestressing.
TTG: the structure of the pieces gives information about
the homogeneity of the prestressing over the plate and by
the number of glass pieces the quantity of prestressing can
be evaluated.
(b)
(c)
Figure 2. Crack pattern and degree of prestress for (a) float glass
(~0 MPa), (b) HSG (~3050 MPa) and (c) TTG (>100 MPa)
(Feldmann et al., 2012)
443


3.
(Bucak et al., 2009; also O. Bucak, 2009, Tragverhalten von

gebogenen Glasscheiben im Bauwesen, FH, Hochschule
Mnchen, unpublished). The question to answer was how to
interpret the coloured photoelastic images and how to quantify
the stress disequilibrium depending on the visualised colour.
Optical quality of tempered glass
The technical qualities are of course a minimum requirement

for the functionality of glass panels in terms of resistance and
post-breakage structure. For architecture, however, in particular for high-standard facades, the optical quality of building
elements made of tempered glass becomes more and more
important. The appearance of anisotropies caused by an
uneven tempering is very undesirable. Until now, at the end of
the production process, there has been no standard testing procedure and no evaluation criteria for the control of these
effects. This means that there is also no quality criterion that
defines a certain optical product quality for tempered glass.
4.
A positive side effect of using photoelasticity is that phenomena

such as hot cracks can also be better visualised (Figure 6).
Examples on site
Both poor technical quality and poor optical quality of tempered glass panels can be found on building sites. A breakage
pattern diverging from the product standards has been seen
quite often for curved glass panels. Unexpected glass breakage
was the result. Figure 3 shows just three different examples.
Here, a non-conforming breakage pattern has been identified
for curved glass of TTG and HSG quality. The TTG panel
(Figure 3(a)) shows bands with rather large glass pieces; the
HSG panels (Figure 3(b) and 3(c)) show cracks with a parallel
development to the straight edges.
A bad optical quality is shown in Figure 4. The product standards mention anisotropy as a general product material property, but it is clear that the production process also has a large
influence on the appearance of a homogeneous prestressing.
5.
Correlation between photoelasticity and

glass pattern
Investigations have shown that the glass patterns of broken

TTG panels are in correlation with photoelasticity analyses.
The example given in Figure 5 is an image that was one of
the starting points for the research work, because a good correlation between the pattern of the broken glass panel and
the pattern of the photoelastic image could be observed
(a)
Figure 4. Bad optical quality of curved tempered glass panel
(b)
Figure 3. Broken curved glass panels with non-conforming glass

pattern: (a) TTG quality; (b) and (c) HSG quality
444
(c)


This type of crack is induced during the production process and

it is often not detected before installation of the glass panel.
is directly correlated to the phase shift of the light; and the

phase shift of the light can be found on the interference
colour scale of Michel Lvy (Figure 7) (Magnus, 2011). The
interference colour scale of Michel Levy is characterised by
several orders. In the zero order, the scale starts with grey
and black shading. The following orders (second, third, etc.)
show a fixed sequence of colours (red ! blue ! green !
yellow ! orange ! red), so a more differentiating analysis is
possible. The point of origin for the analysis can be fixed by
the implementation of an optical retarder.
6.
Correlation between photoelasticity and

thermal stress of glass
Before the common use of finite-element methods, photoelasticity was used to analyse the plane stress state of complex
geometries. The main equation of photoelasticity is
1:
1 2
Cd
where is the characteristic wavelength of the light; is the

phase shift of the light; C is the material constant of glass; d is
thickness of the sample; and 1 2 denotes the stress difference of the principal stresses.
When analysing a sample with polarised light, the phase shift can
be visualised in the form of interference colours. These colour
patterns are influenced by the wavelength of the light, the thickness of the sample and the optical retardation of the light used.
Considering Equation 3, it is clear that the visualised

colour also depends on the thickness of the glass panel or
the thickness of a glass assembly. The thicker the glass
panel is, the larger is the value of Equation 3 and the more
colourful is the appearance on the colour scale of Michel
Lvy.
For the parabolic stress distribution of TTG, Equation 1 must

be modified to
d
1 z 2 zdz
2:
Compared to the plane stress state the values 1 and 2 cannot

be calculated, but for a prestressed glass panel the colour
pattern is a measurement for a homogeneous stress state for
each colour point. The expression
d
1 z 2 zdz
3:
0
Figure 6. Hot crack detected with photoelasticity
Figure 5. Correlation between photoelastic image and the

corresponding breakage pattern
445


Figure 7. Colour scale by Michel Lvy (Magnus, 2011)
3 = 0
3
2
1 = 0
(a)
(b)
Figure 8. (a) Polarising filter image of edge of glass panel and

(b) the corresponding distribution of prestress
The meaning of the colour scale of Michel Lvy can be visualised best at the edge of a tempered glass panel (see Figure 8).
From the left side (black/grey) where the prestressing in principal directions is approximately the same (see also Figure 1),
the changing prestress distribution near to the edge can be
identified by the repeating sequences of colours. In Figure 8
more than six orders can be identified. Since, due to the tempering process, at the edges a parabolic stress distribution does
not exist, Equation 2 is not valid.
For the glass plate away from edges and holes the information
value of the colour pattern gives a 100% control of the stress
state related to the integral of the stress differences cf.
Equation 2. The quality of the glass (heat strengthened or thermally toughened) can be checked by local measurement devices
(such as Scalp). Before carrying out a local stress measurement
it is necessary to check the homogeneity of the prestressing,
because a local measurement in regions with high differences of
thermal prestressing does not give an accurate value.
7.
Stepwise analysis system to evaluate the

glass quality
To evaluate better the quality of glass panels, a stepwise analysis system has been created, based on many tests of past projects. Within two national research and several industrial
446
projects, many results could be obtained, which could then be

implemented into the developed analysis system.
In step 1 the glass specimen is analysed with the help of polarising filters. The first picture should be captured without
using a photoelastic retarder. By taking pictures without a
photoelastic retarder, for example in a plane stress condition
or in homogeneous prestressed glass panels, only black or
grey patterns should be seen (see Figure 9a12a). Comparing
the resulting colours of the specimen (black/grey) with the
colours and the corresponding path difference in the colour
scale of Michel Lvy, these should be located within the first
order. This observation proves the phenomenon; it is possible
to say that the quality of the analysed specimen corresponds to
the product standard.
If this step shows coloured areas, however, apart from edges
and holes, this means that there are large deviations in the integral of the prestress parabolas: comparing the resulting colours
again with the colour scale of Michel Lvy, they are located
beyond the first order. Consequently, the quality of the glass
panels does not correspond to the product standard.
For different glass thicknesses the visualised colours differ, so
colour patterns from different glass thicknesses cannot be compared directly.


In step 2 of the investigation, a closer look is taken at the

undisturbed areas, by measuring local points using the local
measuring device Scalp-04, to obtain quantitative values of the
distortion. Moreover, local measurements should always be
carried out, apart from disturbed areas, so that the glass type
can be determined and controlled.
In a final step 3, photoelastic pictures should be taken again,

but this time with the use of a photoelastic retarder. By using a
photoelastic retarder with a defined path difference (for
example 560 nm), this causes a delay of the light and affects the
photoelastic coloured pictures (see Figure 9b12b). With the
help of this method, colour deviations can be seen, thus
(a)
(b)
(c)
(b)
(c)
(b)
(c)
Figure 9. Photoelastic image and corresponding fracture pattern

(10 mm) for fully tempered curved glass
(a)

(4 mm) for TTG. Surface prestress v = 9066 MPa: (a) without
retarder; (b) with retarder; (c) fracture pattern
(a)

(6 mm) for TTG. Surface prestress v = 9920 MPa: (a) without
retarder; (b) with retarder; (c) fracture pattern
447

(a)

(b)
(c)

(8 mm) for TTG. Surface prestress v = 9024 MPa: a) without
retarder, b) with retarder, c) fracture pattern
the grade of the optical quality can be defined. Depending on

the height of the path difference, it is possible to have a regular
or very good optical quality. The smaller the path difference is
(down to zero), the better is the optical quality.
4
Average size of fragments in cm2
8.
20
Laboratory investigations
Originally the investigations were carried out in relation to the

quality of curved tempered glass. The reasons were damages
that were always related to a non-conforming breakage pattern
(see Figure 4). With the stepwise analysis described above a
correlation between the breakage pattern and the photoelastic
colour pattern could be identified.
Figure 9c shows an example of a bad TTG: the colour pattern
of the curve analysed related to zero order shows coloured
regions. The breakage pattern of the glass panel (nonconforming to the European standard) corresponds to the
colour pattern. When analysing the same panel in the first
order using an optical retarder with wavelength adjustment of
one order, the colour pattern does not give any additional
information.
Figures 10c12c show the results for flat glass panels (4, 6 and
8 mm thick). The 6 and 8 mm panels show excellent results
and a very good correlation between the photoelastic images
and the breakage pattern. It also becomes clear that an 8 mm
glass panel shows a larger colour range related to the scale of
Lvy than a 6 mm glass panel, step 3. The 4 mm glass, conversely, shows very bad results: although the photoelastic image
of step 1 indicates homogeneous prestress conditions, the fracture pattern is not in compliance with the standard. One
reason is that a tempering level of 9966 MPa is not sufficient
for such a thin glass panel and the evaluation of the photoelastic images must be done with tighter limits compared to
thicker tempered glass panels. These limits must be analysed
more exactly in the future.
The influence of the prestressing and glass thickness has been
described by Blank et al. (1990) (see Figure 13). The effect has
448
15
Plate thickness:
1: t = 315 mm
2: t = 475 mm
3: t = 556 mm
4: t = 718 mm
10
05
0
50
100
P in N/mm2
150
Figure 13. Size effect on the strength of flat glass (Blank et al.,
1990)
also been identified for curved glass panels with a prestressing

around 55 MPa at the surface (Figure 14). Depending on the
thickness, the breakage patterns differ: the smaller the thickness is, the larger the glass pieces are. For a glass thickness of
8 mm, a surface pressure of 557 MPa, and for a glass thickness of 10 mm, a surface pressure of 522 MPa is too much to
fulfil the product quality of HSG.
9.
Conclusion
The analysis method with photoelasticity provides information

about the homogeneity of the prestressing state of a glass
panel. The quality of the glass (TTG or HSG) can only be
identified in combination with local measurements. The
measuring device Scalp-04 can be used to obtain precise

(a)

(b)
(c)
Figure 14. Breakage pattern tests on different glass thicknesses:

(a) HSG 6 mm, surface prestress v = 551 MPa; (b) HSG 8 mm,
surface prestress v = 557 MPa; (c) HSG 10 mm. surface prestress
v = 522 MPa
information about local prestress through the thickness. In

future, this method could replace breakage tests according to
the product standards, allowing for 100% control of large glass
panels without destructive methods.
Further investigations are still necessary, particularly for the
evaluation of thin (smaller than 6 mm) and thick (thicker than
10 mm) glass panels. Apart from the quality control measurements, the prestressing methods (process technique) can be
analysed with photoelastic images because there is a direct
relation to the tempering process and the resulting prestressing.
For the classification of HSG and TTG by surface measurements, the results of Blank et al. (1990) must be considered.
This means that a classification of the type of glass, particularly for HSG, cannot be carried out with general values like,
for example, 30 to 50 MPa, because the influence of the
thickness must be taken into account properly. A thicker glass
needs less prestressing than a thinner glass to fulfil the product
standard requirements.
Festigkeiten und Qualittssicherung. Stahlbau Spezial,

Konstruktiver Glasbau 78(1): 2328 (in German).
BSI (2000) EN 12150-1:2000: Glass in building thermally
toughened soda lime silicate safety glass. BSI, London, UK.
BSI (2011) BS EN 1863-1:2011: Glass in building heat
strengthened soda lime silicate glass. BSI, London, UK.
Feldmann M, Kasper R and Langosch K (2012) Glas fr tragende
Bauteile. Werner Verlag, Cologne, Germany (in German).
Fppl L and Mnch E (1972) Praktische Spannungsoptik.
Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, vol. 3 (in German).
Magnus M (2011) Michel-Lvy Farbtafel Mineralbestimmung
im Polarisierten Licht. Carl Zeiss MicroImaging GmbH,
Cologne, Germany (in German).
Wolf H (1976) Spannungsoptik. Springer Verlag, Berlin,
Germany, vol. 2 (in German).
Acknowledgements
One of the past projects was conducted in collaboration with
four partners. The glass samples were provided by Flintermann
GmbH. ISRA Surface Vision GmbH provided further photoelastic knowledge. Scientifically, the project was shared by the
University of Applied Sciences of Munich. The authors and project partners are grateful for the financial support of the Federal
Ministry of Economics by way of the AiF-ZIM programme.
REFERENCES
Blank K, Grters H and Hackl K (1990) Contribution to the size
effect on the strength of flat glass. Glastechnische Berichte

63(5): 135140.
Bucak , Feldmann M, Kasper R, Bues M and Illguth M (2009)
Das Bauprodukt warm gebogenes Glas Prfverfahren
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Structures and Buildings

Volume 169 Issue SB6

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers